


Surrender

by mouseratstan



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Fluff, Post-Break Up, break ups, lots of sadness, mostly just angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:08:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24116281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mouseratstan/pseuds/mouseratstan
Summary: "As much as it hurts to lose her, he can't be the man to stop Leslie Knope from her dreams."A series of moments from Ben's point of view during and after 4x01 "I'm Leslie Knope." Inspiration and lyrics from the song "Surrender" by Natalie Taylor.
Relationships: Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	Surrender

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration credit goes to twitter user @najwacita for posting a Benslie edit featuring the song "Surrender" by Natalie Taylor.

“I think I know what you're going to say.”

He has known for too long, he has known for three weeks. Ben Wyatt has stayed up every night for three weeks just to hear her voice, and every night his suspicions intensify.

Every night he holds her close and he listens to her speeches in her sleep and he knows the day is coming, could it be tomorrow? The next day? Every minute it inches closer and he is terrified of losing her, terrified of facing what he knows inevitably has to happen.

But Ben is feeling selfish, so he doesn't say anything. He tries to pretend like everything is okay, but what she doesn't know is that he treats every moment like it's the last. He kisses her deeply every night as if he might never kiss her again. He holds her so close to him as if to stop her from finally slipping away. One of his newest hobbies has become staring at her, watching her, memorizing her so that one day, when he can never see her again, he will still be able to close his eyes and picture every minute detail of her.

She doesn't realize any of this. She's too busy spiraling, he can tell. They're both in pain, but neither say a thing to each other. Both just want to be selfish. Both don't want this to end.

It's cruel, to do this to himself, and to her. He knows he should say something, he shouldn't prolong this any longer. And everytime he gets up the resolve to finally say something, she's there in front of him, and she's forcing a smile, and it's all he can do to press his lips to hers and hold her like the world is ending.

His bed is going to be so cold once she's gone.

///

“We have to break up.”

They are the words that break Ben Wyatt, but he is calm as he says them, because right now, he has to be the strong one. Right now, he has to be the selfless one, no matter how badly he wants to be selfish.

He has been selfish for three weeks, and now it's time to let go.

Nothing could have prepared him for how badly this moment would hurt.

There are tears in her eyes and he knows they are in his, too, and he can't stop looking at her, can't stop thinking about how they should've had more time. It wasn't supposed to end like this.

The first time Ben Wyatt kissed Leslie Knope, he thought she would be his forever. He wanted it to be his last first kiss.

And now they are saying goodbye, and it stings to even hold her hand right now, it burns to look into her eyes that are usually so bright, but are now just sad. She should never be sad. It doesn't feel right on her. She is bright and she is powerful and she is shining and she should never feel sad, and he will destroy whatever in this world ever dares to make her cry.

It kills him that he can't destroy this sadness. There's nothing that can be done. 

It strikes Ben that he doesn't remember when their last kiss was. He had grown too foolish, too careless, postponing this for so long that he stopped thinking about lasts and didn't savor her as much as he should have. And now he’ll never know, and it's just another memory down the drain, another memory he won't have years down the road when he's alone and he's imagining his brief time with one Leslie Knope.

He can never be with her. There are too many complications. Too many ways that this can never work. 

It breaks his heart to walk away from her, but he does it anyway. He has to.

///

“I'm Leslie Knope, and I'm running for City Council.”

It is a bittersweet scene, and one that Ben shouldn't be here for.

They are the words that cut through him like a knife, that slice his heart into pieces, but he has never been prouder to hear them. He has never been prouder of her, and all that she's accomplished, and all that she will achieve. She will do great things, and he was only standing in her way.

As much as it hurts to lose her, he can't be the man that stops Leslie Knope from her dreams.

He promised himself he would walk away, that he would start to keep his distance, that he would stop staring at her as if she holds up the sun, but this proves to be a very daunting task. She is a drug, and he is addicted to her.

So he smiles at her and he claps for her speech and he pretends like there aren't tears in his eyes, because once again she needs him to be strong. She needs him to be okay, because otherwise the guilt will break her, so he will be. In public he will smile and shake her hand and be the friend and boss that he needs to be to keep her going.

But in private, when he gets home that night, he crashes on his bed and he cries. He grips his sheets in his fist and he curses himself for washing them so recently, because they no longer smell like her, and it's like every trace of her is truly gone.

He's right. His bed is cold.

///

“My love, where are you?”

He doesn't remember the last time he saw her. Maybe because he's started to avoid her at every turn.

Where once City Hall was a place of wonder, of bright blonde hair and sweet giggles and stolen kisses, now it is his personal nightmare, and she is there at every turn.

He thought, once, that he could handle it, that he could continue on like everything was alright, as if nothing ever happened at all, but he had never been more wrong. A whiff of her takes his breath away, yanks the rug out from under him. When he hears her voice echoing in the building, he is drowning, and he runs to the bathroom just to get back to shore, to even his breathing and remind himself that she has every right to be here, even more of a right than he does, because Pawnee belongs to her, and he is just an idiot who let it all slip away from him.

Nobody notices anything. Nobody looks at Ben and realizes just how badly he is breaking. Maybe because he's always been bitter, and he's never been friendly, and his dip into softness when he was with Leslie was just out of character. Maybe he should go back to being mean. Maybe he should go back to not caring, to being the numbers robot everyone thought he was.

But he can't do that, he can't be okay again, if every time she's near, she knocks him off his feet. He can't be around her anymore.

He tries to tell her as much, one day. His heart breaks for the second time when she walks away.

///

“Flying my white flag.”

Fighting with her is too easy, but it really shouldn't be.

Maybe it's because he's been holding in his pain for so long, released only when he's lying in his bed, that he's finally aching to tell her how he feels, no matter how it comes out. Even if that involves exploding in front of several teenagers at an event they ruined.

And she is fighting back, and she is a sight to behold when she's angry, and maybe Ben kind of likes to see it. Maybe he's drinking this up, because this is the most attention she's given him in over a month. Maybe he's still addicted to her, and any notice at all helps ease his withdrawal pains, even if it's a bad notice.

For a moment, he swears to himself that he can grow to hate her, that one day he can look in the mirror and just know that he wants nothing to do with her. But the feeling is over as soon as it arrives, and he knows that isn't true. He feels guilty for even thinking it, for even imagining a world where Ben Wyatt and Leslie Knope can't stand each other.

It used to be so easy to stay away from her, in the beginning. He isn't sure where it all went wrong, at which point his brain changed ‘annoyed’ into 'adoration.’ He's kind of mad at himself for it.

Once he calms down, he realizes just how much he hates fighting with her. Anger takes up too much energy. But being around her takes everything in him.

He doesn't want to do this anymore.

///

“Whenever you're ready.”

Ben has so many things he wants to say to her, but there's no more time.

It aches, a real and true physical pain in his chest, and even though it's the hardest thing he's ever had to do, he knows it's time to really say goodbye. He knows he should've done it when they first broke up, but he wasn't strong enough. It was foolish, it was masochistic, it was selfish.

He knows this is the case when he sits on his bed in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, and all he can see is her. He knows it's gone too far when he tears off a sheet of paper and starts to write something, anything, all the words he wants to say to her, all the goodbyes he should have said, when he realizes it isn't a goodbye letter.

He is writing down all of his thoughts, and they all lead back to her. He is writing like he expects her to come back to him someday, like this breakup isn't permanent, like it's just a dark moment in his life that he'll look back on in the future.

He writes like he is waiting for her, as if he can actually give her this letter and tell her everything and she can make a choice to come back to him.

He stares at the last three words on the page, words he doesn't even remember writing.

Whenever you're ready.

There is no choice here, he reasons. The words are meaningless. He can't wait for her, because she will never come back. There is no world in which the two of them can be together. There are too many ways in which it won't work.

Even if they’re both ready, the world never will be. The circumstances will never be right. It can't happen.

With a choking sob, he crumples up his note and throws it away. It's time to stop hoping. It's time to stop thinking things can go back to the way they were. It's time to finally let her go.

///

“Can we surrender?”

The air is cold, and he shoves his hands in his pockets and curls his coat tighter around him. When he opens his mouth, he can see a puff of air, but the weather isn't the reason he's shaking.

He has goosebumps all down his skin, and every word charges him, electrifies him, brings life into him. This is a dream from which he never wants to wake up.

It's the first time he's touched her in so long. And when he kisses her, she gasps, as if she didn't expect it, and then sighs into his mouth. He breathes her in, he gets drunk off of her, and he never stops replaying the moment she finally comes back to him.

This is their second first kiss, and again, Ben Wyatt sees a forever in Leslie Knope.

They fought this war for far too long, but he feels her under him, and the pain slips away. Her skin is soft and she smells like something faintly sweet and he can't wait to get her in his sheets again, and he swears he will have her there every night if that's what it takes to never have her scent washed away again.

The way he kisses her screams I love you, even if he doesn't say those words yet. The time will come. It will be okay.

He doesn't care about planning or caution anymore. He likes to say screw it.

He likes to surrender.


End file.
